Why Don't I Receive Better Spam?
It's the familiar lament of everyone who has email: I log in, and my inbox is full of nothing but spam. The Nigerians want you to handle their money, people with indeterminate names want to sell Viiaaggrraa and Ciiiiaaalllllliiisss, and someone else wants to give you Free Pics Of Hot Babes Humping Robots.
Spam is a sad fact of life, and its existence is not my complaint (although I do wish my .edu address had better (read: any) filters). No, my complaint is, quite simply, that the quality of spam I receive has shown a marked decline. Stock tips? Free Rolex watches? Where is the humor here? Where is the Ig Nobel-winning prose asking me to handle the finances of the exiled Nigerian elite?
No doubt the stocks these people are attempting to sell would allow me to retire in comfort by the time I turn thirty, but a spare paragraph advertising Hott Stock Pixx followed by a nonsensical paragraph composed of sentence snippets that are intended to mimic a discussion of politics, world events, movies, sports, culture, etc., provides me with absolutely no entertainment. It's fortunate that I have other forms of amusement, because if I relied on my daily ration of spam for that purpose, I'd be out of luck. Messages from Adolph with the subject pharmacyStuff [aITh7CFqX1pbs2qviRiqBPJwB8... have no value of any kind.
There is, however, a ray of hope. A Mr. Masuda Shinyaku, MD/CEO/PRESIDENT of Masuda Chemical Industries Co., Ltd. Japan, wants me to act as his international representative due to unspecified monetary policies that are crippling his business. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, I need only provide him with various personal information, including but not limited to my phone number and marital status. In a separate communication, Ickenroth LaRouche is pleased to inform me that I have won an international lottery. (Sadly, I have probably made myself ineligible, as Mr. (?) LaRouche requested that I keep the award from public notice until the process is complete and the funds remitted to my account. Perhaps I can still enter the drawing for the 13 million euro prize at the end of the year....) It's small, but it's a start.
I mean, stock tips? What kind of spam is that? If I want stock tips I'll look for them in the Wall Street Journal. I expect more from my email.
At Least I'm Not The Only One
The holiday marketing season is beginning to gear up in earnest, to the point that last weekend I saw a holiday-themed commercial--what to get your pet for Christmas. (Answer: little portable stairs to assist elderly/obese animals in climbing up on the sofa or the bed.)
There is, however, evidence that others are as disturbed by the trend as I am. In
this article (unrelated to the holidays until the very end), we see a term I wish I had thought of: season treason.
As soon as Halloween is over, Madison Avenue will turn its full attention to another, even more important shopping season: Christmas.
In recent years, retailers and other advertisers have committed what Mr. Smith at Yankelovich described as "season treason" — moving up the starting date for holiday campaigns from the day after Thanksgiving to the day after Halloween.
Now that’s scary.Scary, indeed.
On the other hand, I worry that I may be a hypocrite. You see, I have contributed to the rushing of the winter season through my purchase of a six-pack of Sam Adams Winter Lager. It is not Christmas-themed per se, but the pale blue and white label, not to mention the very name "Winter Lager," is far more suited to the winter months--snow and ice, and bare branches, not the autumnal colors we see around us now. Should I not have stayed with the Octoberfest, if I wanted a seasonal beer? I fear that I have, in my own small way, given the local liquor store an incentive to continue stocking seasonal beers ahead of the seasons they represent.
Oh well. At this rate, Sam Adams Summer Ale should be available by April at the latest, and I do like the Summer Ale....
In Which I Complain About The Weather
Well, I guess we're due for another post.
It's currently at least 70 degrees outside. Due to the recent (seasonal, thank you very much) cool weather, it's a bit better inside, but that's not the point. The point is that I've been outside today, and I should not be fantasizing about shorts and sandals in the middle of October. It is, quite simply, hot outside. This is not right. If anything, mid-October should see snow flurries and frosts--I mean, if we're going to be unseasonable, we should err on the side of colder, rather than warmer.
As warm-blooded creatures, humans are better adapted to stand extremes of cold than of heat. And as a practical matter, it's better to be cold than hot, because when you're cold, you can always put on another layer. When you're hot, there's only so much you can take off before the neighbors call the cops.
There's also a certain satisfaction to cold weather. When it's cold outside, you can look forward to coming in and having something hot to drink, or putting on nice soft slippers, or sitting in front of a fire. Winter food is more satisfying--stews, roasted meats, fresh-baked bread....
Clearly the solution is for me to continue moving north. I should look into reindeer herding.
I'm Not Dead...
...just apathetic. Also, I went on a mini-vacation which, while interesting enough for me, doesn't make for particularly scintillating reading. I spent most of the week on Martha's Vineyard, visiting some family friends who live there. Here's a picture:
I'll also note that yesterday marked the first Christmas-themed commercial, two weeks before Halloween, and that holiday catalogs have been turning up relentlessly in the mail. Maybe later I'll find some untapped well of creativity and post something that people may want to read.
North Korea's Nuclear Test
So, I may be in the minority on this one, but my first reaction is--so what? It changes nothing. We learned nothing from it. I mean, the test could hardly have been a surprise, and we already knew that Kim Jong Il is crazy. So they have it, and they tested it--is it really any different from having it and not testing it? The U.S. respose, therefore, should not be dictated by the fact that the North Koreans tested (successfully
or not) a nuclear device. The analogy that springs to mind is that of a little kid wanting attention while Mom and Dad are talking about grown-up things. The kid interrupts and whines with no success until, finally, tired of being ignored, he dumps grape juice all over the rug. The Dear Leader also wants people to pay attention to him. Not to stray too much into psychoanalysis, but when your (deceased) father is still constitutionally the Eternal President and the Great Leader, there's probably some desire to get some recognition for yourself.
So, what should the response be? Nothing, for the moment. Sanctions or a blockade wouldn't do any good. Such measures wouldn't have any effect on the leadership, and they would hurt the civilian population. Trying to negotiate with the North Koreans isn't likely to work, either, since there's not a whole lot of good faith on their part.
The real risk, of course, is that North Korea will escalate things to the point of threatening Seoul or Tokyo. Kim is a) unpredictable and b) probably extremely misinformed about world affairs, isolated by the syncophants around him. He may not realize just how isolated he already is, and that threats against South Korea or Japan would only increase his unpopularity. And it is, of course, dangerous to make the assumption that surely someone in North Korea must have an idea of what's going on and the ability to keep the situation under control. The question is one of capability--do the North Koreans have a nuclear weapon they can effectively deploy? Until we know that, we can't respond. If in fact North Korea does have a weapon, the U.S. and China need to be prepared for the possibility of military action: quick, surgical airstrikes.
There's obviously more to be said on the subject, so this is in no way intended to be an exhaustive evaluation of options for dealing with North Korea.
A Sunset
To make up for having nothing to say, I've decided to post a photo of this neat thing the sky did a couple nights ago. It only lasted a few minutes, so I was lucky to get a decent picture of it.
With regards to the previous entry, the New York Times seems to have
seconded my call to buy Georgian wine. I must be on to something....
Buy Georgian Wine
...no, seriously, it's pretty good. This isn't really a post about the superiority of Georgian wine, though; it's about the willingness of Russia to play hardball with the near abroad, and the willingness of the West to let it go.
Because Georgia has a pro-Western president and is moving closer to the United States and Europe, Russia has closed the borders and is
rounding up Georgians in Russia. It sounds to me like a prelude to ethnic cleansing, although I doubt it will really go that far.
The dispute with Georgia isn't new. Russia has been encouraging the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia for years, maintaining peacekeepers in the regions and offering Russian passports to the Abkhaz and South Ossetians. The Rose Revolution in 2003 exacerbated the problem.
It's interesting to me that so many people seem to think that Russia's geopolitical objectives have changed just because the Soviet Union fell apart. Yes, Russia is now a (nominal) democracy with a fledgling market economy, but it was never really about spreading Communist ideology, was it?
That said, the U.S. hasn't been willing to confront Russia on any of this. Part of it stems from an entirely reasonable desire to avoid restarting the Cold War (it would get a lot nastier with groups like al Qaeda as major world players, wouldn't it?), but part of it is the result of shortsightedness on the part of the decisionmakers. The problem is that the West won the Cold War, and so has forgotten about it. The Civil War is still a big deal in the South, and pretty much ignored north of the Mason-Dixon line, and similarly, Russia has not forgotten the Cold War. Unlike the Confederacy, however, it can rise again. It still has nukes, and that potentially makes it a big player--only the U.S. is ignoring Russian nukes in favor of theoretical Iranian and North Korean nukes.
Russia has no choice but to play hardball if it wants to maintain its influence. It doesn't have the soft power (McDonald's, Coke, pop culture) that the U.S. does. It's a shame that the West is so far allowing it to happen.
Hey, the least we can do is create more demand for Georgian wine....
Wanderlust
If I could go to one place in the world, it would be the South Pole. Not too many people have been there, relatively speaking. It's nice and cold (for now), and there are penguins in Antarctica for me to see on the way. There's even history to be found there--not in buildings, but it's no less powerful for that. Anyway, it'd be a cool place to visit.
Next up is Rome. If not for the... limited... career opportunities, I could have been a classics major. As it is, I've had to read about Roman history on my own time, and I'd like to get there and see what's left of it for myself.
After that is Norway. I've only seen it from the air, on a flight back from Russia, but it looked pretty nice. What can I say, I'm
pining for the fjords.
I'm hard-pressed to rank my choices after that. I'd probably even consider the tropics, despite my distaste for humidity and massive, many-legged insects.
Come to think of it, I can't think of many places I wouldn't want to see.
Reflections on the Season
First of all, I wouldn't say that I have a favorite season. They each have something to recommend them, which is why I prefer to live in a place where all four seasons exist as distinct entities, as opposed to the South (i.e., the Virginia suburbs of DC), where summer and winter exist, but spring and especially fall are sad parodies of their true selves. I remember walking from my Arlington apartment to Georgetown on my way to class and crossing the Key Bridge. The Potomac sparkled below, and the lampposts on the bridge were decked out for the holidays with wreaths and ribbons. It was December. I was wearing short sleeves. This happened a lot.
Now that I'm back in Providence, I'm enjoying the transition from summer to fall. Every morning, there are a few more yellow leaves on the trees and sidewalks, and the oranges and reds are slowly becoming apparent. As I said before, I don't have a favorite season, but there's something about those late fall days when the sky is gray and the sun is going down late in the afternoon, and the branches of the trees are mostly bare, and the yellow leaves on the ground are slick from a light rain, and the streetlights are on. Even the fact that two more Christmas-themed catalogs arrived today can't damped my enthusiasm.
Happy Fall.
Things I Want To Do, But Can't
This weekend, I think I will go to Home Depot and buy a hose. Then I will tie one end of the hose to a cinderblock. Then I will heave the cinderblock through the window of that house down the street where the students live, together with a note telling them to wash up the vomit from the sidewalk.
Of course, I won't actually do that. It's nice to think about, but it's one of those things best left to one's imagination, along with my idea of sitting at a particular intersection with a basket of eggs, egging each car that runs the stop sign. (I would need a lot of eggs.) Come to think of it, there are plenty of things that are fun to imagine but impractical to execute, and they don't all involve taking vengeance on drunken undergrads and incompetent drivers.
For example, when I was little, I wanted more than anything to be either a paleontologist or an astronaut. I would still jump at the chance to do either. The problem is that it would involve a radical change from my current career path. I've invested too much money in my education in international relations to go and spend more so I could do a spacewalk or dig up dinosaur bones. It's a shame, though, that our childhood ambitions fade like that. And they usually do. There are an awful lot of office managers in the world, and my guess is that very few of them played Replacing The Toner or Writing Condescending Notes To Staff To Be Posted In The Break Room when they were kids.
It's not that I dislike the path I've chosen. I liked it enough to go to grad school and immerse myself in questions about international security. It's just that it'd be pretty cool to go dig up a T-Rex or be the first person to walk on Mars. I guess the moral is to follow your dreams, even if they may seem impractical.
So, with that in mind... how much do hoses cost, anyway?
